LONDON,December 13,O.S.1748.
DEAR BOY:The last four posts have brought me no letters,either from you or from Mr.Harte,at which I am uneasy;not as a mamma would be,but as a father should be:for I do not want your letters as bills of health;you are young,strong,and healthy,and I am,consequently,in no pain about that:moreover,were either you or Mr.Harte ill,the other would doubtless write me word of it.My impatience for yours or Mr.Harte's letters arises from a very different cause,which is my desire to hear frequently of the state and progress of your mind.You are now at that critical period of life when every week ought to produce fruit or flowers answerable to your culture,which I am sure has not been neglected;and it is by your letters,and Mr.Harte's accounts of you,that,at this distance,I can only judge at your gradations to maturity;I desire,therefore,that one of you two will not fail to write to me once a week.
The sameness of your present way of life,I easily conceive,would not make out a very interesting letter to an indifferent bystander;but so deeply concerned as I am in the game you are playing,even the least move is to me of importance,and helps me to judge of the final event.
As you will be leaving Leipsig pretty soon after you shall have received this letter,I here send you one inclosed to deliver to Mr.Mascow.It is to thank him for his attention and civility to you,during your stay with him:and I take it for granted,that you will not fail making him the proper compliments at parting;for the good name that we leave behind at one place often gets before us to another,and is of great use.As Mr.Mascow is much known and esteemed in the republic of letters,I think it would be of advantage to you,if you got letters of recommendation from him to some of the learned men at Berlin.Those testimonials give a lustre,which is not to be despised;for the most ignorant are forced to seem,at least,to pay a regard to learning,as the most wicked are to virtue.Such is their intrinsic worth.
Your friend Duval dined with me the other day,and complained most grievously that he had not heard from you above a year;I bid him abuse you for it himself;and advised him to do it in verse,which,if he was really angry,his indignation would enable him to do.He accordingly brought me,yesterday,the inclosed reproaches and challenge,which he desired me to transmit to you.As this is his first essay in English poetry,the inaccuracies in the rhymes and the numbers are very excusable.He insists,as you will find,upon being answered in verse;which I should imagine that you and Mr.HARTE,together,could bring about;as the late Lady Dorchester used to say,that she and Dr.
Radcliffe,together,could cure a fever.This is however sure,that it now rests upon you;and no man can say what methods Duval may take,if you decline his challenge.I am sensible that you are under some disadvantages in this proffered combat.Your climate,at this time of the year especially,delights more in the wood fire,than in the poetic fire;and I conceive the Muses,if there are any at Leipsig,to be rather shivering than singing;nay,I question whether Apollo is even known there as god of Verse,or as god of Light:perhaps a little as god of Physic.These will be fair excuses,if your performance should fall something short;though I do not apprehend that it will.
While you have been at Leipsig,which is a place of study more than of pleasure or company,you have had all opportunities of pursuing your studies uninterruptedly;and have had,I believe,very few temptations to the contrary.But the case will be quite different at Berlin,where the splendor and dissipation of a court and the 'beau monde',will present themselves to you in gaudy shapes,attractive enough to all young people.
Do not think,now,that like an old fellow,I am going to advise you to reject them,and shut yourself up in your closet:quite the contrary;I advise you to take your share,and enter into them with spirit and pleasure;but then I advise you,too,to allot your time so prudently,as that learning may keep pace with pleasures;there is full time,in the course of the day,for both,if you do but manage that time right and like a good economist.The whole morning,if diligently and attentively devoted to solid studies,will go a great way at the year's end;and the evenings spent in the pleasures of good company,will go as far in teaching you a knowledge,not much less necessary than the other,I mean the knowledge of the world.Between these two necessary studies,that of books in the morning,and that of the world in the evening,you see that you will not have one minute to squander or slattern away.Nobody ever lent themselves more than I did,when I was young,to the pleasures and dissipation of good company.I even did it too much.But then,I can assure you,that I always found time for serious studies;and,when Icould find it no other way,I took it out of my sleep,for I resolved always to rise early in the morning,however late I went to bed at night;and this resolution I have kept so sacred,that,unless when I have been confined to my bed by illness,I have not,for more than forty years,ever been in bed at nine o'clock in the morning but commonly up before eight.
When you are at Berlin,remember to speak German as often as you can,in company;for everybody there will speak French to you,unless you let them know that you can speak German,which then they will choose to speak.Adieu.